


Recreating Mother

by LavernaG



Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons)
Genre: AI, Akiridion tech, Family, Post-3Below (Tales of Arcadia)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:47:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25809109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LavernaG/pseuds/LavernaG
Summary: Prince Krel of House Tarron is determined to bring back his Mother. Post-Series. One-Shot.
Relationships: Krel Tarron & Mothership (Tales of Arcadia)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 48





	Recreating Mother

**Author's Note:**

> Watching "Wizards" really put me in the right mood to finish this story I'd started after seeing "3Below: Part Two". Every season of ToA has at least one devastating death, and in "3Below" it was the Mothership's. And I just couldn't leave it like that.
> 
> I hope you enjoy, and please leave me a comment if you do! :)

He'd been sure he'd got it right this time. How hard could it have been to recreate an AI? He had been working on it every delson since Aja, Varvatos and Luug had returned to Akiridion-5. When he wasn't at school of course. School was still something he took seriously. And not because the math teacher had finally told him she believed in his maths and physics skills. It was because outside of slaying evil troll-like creatures and saving the Earth, it was the place where he could meet all of his friends. And Mother had told him how important school was for humans. Speaking of whom…

Krel threw his favourite screwdriver and his serrator across the room, crashing one fist against the part of Mothership he'd been trying to fix. Only his phone remained safely in his upper right hand. It was useless. Useless! Nothing worked! He had tried everything he could think of. He'd even gone as far as considering Troll magic. He'd even consulted Stuart!

From the corner of his eye he could see three large jars with bright electrical sparks in them. Himself, Toby and Aaarrrgghh had captured those lightnings over the period of the last parson. Krel had figured he could use their energy to power the Mothership once he'd fixed her programming system.

He had done pretty well with recovering her data from the stasis chamber and the Omen she'd occupied before being erased. He'd had to make some adjustments to make the system more likely to work. But because he wasn't exactly an engineer but merely a child genius, he was still missing something. If only he knew what it was!

The Akiridion engineers he kept in touch with weren't any wiser. They had created dozens of AIs but not one of them had any experience with recovering an erased one. Krel was starting to lose hope. And it didn't help that Aja had lost her faith weeks ago. She kept advising him to allow the Akiridion engineers to install a new AI in the old Mothership. It would soon feel the same as when Mother was there, she told him. But even through millions of light keltons and two hologram screens Krel could see that she was as unconvinced of her words as her brother was. Nothing could ever replace Mother.

Krel made a growling sound and stomped off, through the doorway that had once resembled a fireplace but now was just a hole in the wall, and into the living room. He threw himself on the couch and stared up at the ceiling.

"What else do you need?!" he shouted at no one. "I have done everything I could think of and you're still not fixed!" He grabbed a pillow and held it against his chest. "I want you back! And don't think I'll give up. I'll never give up. One delson I'm going to hear your voice again. Just you wait. Just a little bit more patience… And maybe a few more adjustments-"

"Hey there, long-face!" Lucy's head appeared in Krel's sight as the Blank bowed over the back of the couch. "Oh, is my honeycakes upset again?" She made a sad face.

"Not to worry, young man!" Ricky was suddenly standing next to her. "I've got just the ticket to turn that frown upside down."

Krel held up his left hands. "Not now," he said with a weary sigh. "I've got to think."

"Okay! We'll just let you paddle your own canoe, won't we, honey?" Lucy stepped closer to Ricky and the latter put his arm around her. "Easy peasy lemon squeezy!" Ricky added and the two of them swept off towards the kitchen.

Krel groaned. Sometimes it was annoying how optimistic the Blanks always sounded. As if they didn't understand why he was upset. It was already October. How much longer would it take to finalize Mother? He didn't want to fall asleep in the silence any more. He missed Mother's lullabies and her soothing voice. He missed her knowing the answer to every question he could come up with. He even missed her sassy sarcasm!

A wild vibration in his hand startled Krel and it took him a few sektons to catch the phone he'd thrown up in the air. Once he did, he brought it to his ear and said, "Toby! I am busy right now. I'm working on Mother." He stopped to listen to the human for a moment. "What kind of creatures? Can't you and Aaarrrgghh take care of it? How many?! Ahh, all right, all right. I'm coming."

* * *

The sun was about to set when Krel finally got home again. He waved goodbye to Toby and Steve, who were going in the opposite direction, and smiled. There was nothing like some good creep-slaying with friends. He had almost forgotten about Mother for the time being. But just before he could walk up to the front door, he heard some voices somewhere nearby, and as he turned to look down the street, he saw a mother and two little boys on the sidewalk. The woman was holding one of the boys in her arms as the child hid his face in her red curls.

"Look, mommy! The sky is so beautiful!" the other boy was shouting with wonder and pointing at the pink and orange clouds in the distance.

"Yes. It's stunning," the mother agreed and the boy in her arms turned his head to look up at the sky. "Your father is up there in Heaven and he paints the sky for you. So when you see a beautiful sunset like this one, know that he is thinking about us."

"Really, mommy?" the boy in her arms piped up excitedly.

"Yes, darling."

Krel's first thoughts were, "That's so stupid. If their father is not from Earth, why tell them a story about him painting the atmosphere? Why not just tell them he is very far away?" But then something happened. Krel felt a stinging in his eyes and the sight of the small family on the sidewalk blurred momentarily. He turned around and was inside his home before the first tear could fall.

Without paying any mind to Lucy and Ricky cooking together in the kitchen, Krel marched through the living room, the passageway to the inner section of the Mothership and straight to his latest workspace—the very heart of Mothership, where a bunch of important wires connected Mother's data to the ship's operating system. Along the way he used his serrator to change back into his natural Akiridion form, so that the impact would be bigger when he smashed his fists—all four of them—against the ship's dashboard.

"Why are you still not working?!" he shouted at the empty room. "I need you!" Even the feeling of hot tears rolling freely down his cheeks reminded him of Mother. _"Humans are so wasteful,"_ she had declared when Aja had first wept. "Now! I need you here!" He stomped his foot; a couple of teardrops fell from the tip of his chin down onto the wiring.

A few bright cracking sparks startled him and Krel jumped back from the dashboard. He wiped at his eyes with his left upper hand and stared at the wiring that had started crackling and throwing sparks. "No, no, no, no, no," he cried out in panic and knelt down next to the exposed and, clearly, unsettled wiring.

Krel reached his hands and serrator out to try and disconnect some of the wires, only to have to pull them back when he burned one of his hands. "Ay-yi-yi," he muttered, leaning away from the electrical sparks that were now flying all the way up to the ceiling and turning blue half-way down again. Something in the ship started hissing loudly, something else started vibrating under the floor as if threatening to blow up. Something in the dashboard made a loud whining sound and Krel had to press his hands against his ears to escape the sound. The multiple screens on the walls flashed a frightening red until suddenly everything became very quiet and very still again.

Still in a bit of a shock, Krel lowered his hands from his head and ever so carefully poked a finger at the wiring that apparently couldn't stand a little salty water. It sizzled again and Krel pulled his hand back. But not because of the little electrical sparks still dancing around the wires, but instead because of the words that echoed faintly through the room.

"Power resources not detected… Energy reserves failing… Do-d-down…"

"Mother!" Krel shouted in victory and jumped up. With newfound energy he dashed for one of the lightnings in a jar and hauled it closer to the open wiring, finding it hard to be careful with it due to his excitement. "Don't worry! Power resources are coming! Just hold on for one mekron longer!"

"Shutting down…" The light in the room dimmed slightly while Krel dug through his toolbox for the correct transmitter for such an enormous amount of energy. His other two hands were busy prying open a floorboard under which he had designed a socket for the lightning jar.

"Aha!" Krel called out with pride when he pushed the jar into its new place and attached the transmitter to its lid. "Please work, please work, please work," he chanted, fixing the other end of it to a cable of the Mothership.

A loud and relatively harmless explosion sent him tumbling across the room. Once the smoke cleared, all the screens showed a clear light blue image of an empty teardrop shape, slowly filling.

"Charging… Unknown power source detected…"

Krel felt his eyes filling up with new tears while his face broke into a wide grin. "Mother! Can you hear me?" he asked as the lights in the room became brighter again. He waited for a long beat, holding his breath in anxious anticipation.

"My royal," the ship's sweet voice came from the direction of the dashboard and echoed back from all the screens. "You are truly remarkable." She sounded weak and weary, her usual melodious tone was quivering, her words were clipped. But there was also relief in her voice. Mother was happy.

The Mothership did not speak for the rest of the night nor the next delson. Krel kept busy with fixing parts of the ship he had neglected earlier, and when one jar of lightning had emptied its contents into Mother's own renewed energy reserves, he put a new one in its place.

Krel knew it would probably take a few more delsons for Mother to recover enough to be able to properly converse again, and he wasn't worried. Human emotions had surprised him once again. But when Krel had gone to bed the second night, he heard what he had been afraid he would never hear again—the gentle humming of a lullaby. He was too worn out to glance over to the teardrop-shaped hologram hovering beside his bed but he smiled through his sleep.

Mother dimmed the lights in the room and whispered, "Good night, my dear royal."

_The End_


End file.
